Inspectors: Weston Hospital improved

WESTON Hospital – criticised by health watchdogs last year for poor staffing levels, record keeping and medicines management – is now meeting all the required standards for care, inspectors confirmed.

Concerns were raised about staffing levels, the safe keeping of medicines and record keeping following a visit by Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors in April last year.

Weston Area Health Trust, which runs the hospital, was ordered to take action to improve and inspectors made an unannounced follow up visit to the hospital in November.

Now, in a new report, CQC inspectors said the hospital has made improvements and had recruited new staff and taken actions to ensure the safe keeping of medicines and improve record keeping.

The trust has recruited 39 qualified nurses from overseas as well as a small number of additional nurses from the UK.

Its vacancies for nursing staff has also fallen – from 107 to 27 between April and October last year – and the number of agency nurses reduced from 50 to 15.

Inspectors found that additional medical staff had been recruited to the medical assessment unit and the emergency department. They were also told the number of ED consultants had also been increased, which is sufficient to cover the winter rota. Hospital chiefs added that the nursing staff shift patterns in ED had also been changed to provide more nurses on the later, busier shifts.

Inspectors said they found significant improvements in the accuracy and completeness of patient records and that procedures to store medicines had also been improved.

Inspectors visited seven wards, the day surgery unit and the emergency department, speaking with 35 patients, nine relatives and 32 members of staff.

They also investigated the quality of care and welfare of patients following complaints from whistleblowers at the hospital who claimed patients in the emergency department were being left on trolleys for hours without food or water – a claim vehemently denied by hospital staff.

Doctors and nurses working in the emergency department told inspectors that patients were never left on trolleys for long periods and if the wards were full, spare beds were brought into ED cubicles to ensure patients were comfortable.

Staff added that patients who were frail, at risk of pressure ulcers or who had dementia were put on beds straight away to ensure they received safe and appropriate care.

Inspectors said: "We found that people's needs were assessed and care and treatment was planned and delivered in line with their individual care plan."

As well as its emergency department, the hospital has 11 inpatient wards, a private patient suite, a maternity unit, a sexual health unit and the Seashore Centre which offers day care and community services for young people. The health trust is also meeting the Government's target of seeing 95 per cent of emergency patients within four hours.